F A C T O R F I C T I O N by John Ney

A Wine Artist is Born!

The question has been asked so many times by so many.  How did he get his start in painting?  This is a legitimate question of any great artist, and it takes on an entirely new significance when the artist is self trained, having possessed no formal training.  When the story is told and repeated so frequently, it becomes “urban legend,” with very few even remembering the beginning.  Well I'm here to remind you ...

It all started in the streets of the “inner city” of Detroit.  Like many young men of that age, he spent his spare time “hanging out” with what many of us would call a “gang.”  He spent his nights in alleys and darkened streets relentlessly practicing his art.  At that time his art wasn't painting, it was music ...... well sort of ....... it was Rap!

What makes this story unique was his best friend growing up has become even more famous than him.M&M and Thomas were inseparable, walking the streets of Detroit chanting their Rap to anyone who would listen and even more who didn't want to listen.  Imagine Thomas standing on the make-shift stage side by side with the now infamous M&M, two white boys tossing barbs, talking trash, all in that harmonistic and poetic chant called Rap.  The other Rappers could be very cruel in their criticism, and it became crystal clear that there simply wasn't room for two white boys to Rap on an African-American stage, especially when one of them wasn't any good at it.

“Yo Thomas,” M&M bellowed, “you need to step aside.I'm a one-man show, let me show the brothers how to Rap.”  It was in that moment, stepping back out of the spotlight and into the shadow of M&M, that Thomas found his first canvas - the cement block wall of the abandoned building in the darkened alley that would be the backdrop for his first work.  With his ever present bottle of wine in that brown paper bag and M&M chanting in the background, Thomas picked up the can of red spray paint and went to work.  With a solid mid-western work ethic, Thomas terrorized the city with his graffiti while sipping his wine in a brown paper bag.  Until one day ...

Even back then, it was evident that Thomas was a gifted artist, however, the one difference between an artist who paints on canvas and displays his work in galleries and the artist who paints on city structures with a can of spray paint, is that it usually isn't a good idea for the graffiti artist to sign his artwork with his real name!

Once again, “Yo Thomas,” M&M shouted, “the heat is on, you need to leave town man, change your paintings, change your name.”Bewildered, Thomas asked, “Where will I go, what will I paint?”  “Someplace they don't know you,” M&M responded, “hide out and paint whatever it is that you have in that brown paper bag,” and “don't forget, change your name.”  And the rest is history!  Or so they say ...